Nashville, TN – RIGHTEOUS BABE RADIO is broadcasting PRISON PRISM, REFRACTING OUTWARD FROM THE PRISON MUSIC PROJECT, a radio festival dedicated to discussions about our criminal justice system currently airing through June 12, 2020. We are hearing from incarcerated poets and lyricists offering their songs and stories and from some of the artists who helped bring those stories to life as part of the artist collective that created the album, Long Time Gone (out on June 5). Noted activist and author Angela Davis has been added to the extensive programming lineup. Her interview will begin airing on June 4 at 7:30pm CT and will repeat until June 12. About the album, Davis remarked, “[Long Time Gone] is really powerful and it needs to circulate more.”
For a look into the history of incarceration in America, PRISON PRISM features the cultural lens of folk-singer Woody Guthrie through a prison-themed episode of Righteous Babe Radio’s Woody’s Voice and the field recordings of folklorist Alan Lomax in an episode of the podcast Been All Around this World titled “”Making it Hell,” Parchman Farm, 1933-1969.”
We are hearing Incarceration in a Crisis, a virtual town hall led by Bernie Sanders, discussing the realities of the American prison system in the current age of COVID-19. We are highlighting an alternative methodology to our current system, known as Restorative Justice, by hearing from survivors, perpetrators, and public figures such as Davis and Howard Zehr about their experiences with it. The Prison Prism will also provide a platform for organizations that sponsor arts and education programs in prisons today. It is this type of organization that made THE PRISON MUSIC PROJECT and its long-awaited album Long Time Gone possible.
Long Time Gone from THE PRISON MUSIC PROJECT is a musical collaboration between free artists and incarcerated or formerly incarcerated writers. All profits of the album sales will go to the Southern Center for Human Rights, an organization that strives for equality, dignity and justice for people impacted by the criminal legal system and fights for a world free from mass incarceration, the death penalty, the criminalization of poverty and racial injustice.
On June 12 the radio festival will culminate in a virtual performance, PRISON MUSIC PROJECT SESSIONS: LONG TIME GONE ALBUM RELEASE CONCERT featuring Ani DiFranco, Zoe Boekbinder, Terence Higgins, free feral, Launa Reed and more. Presented by Live from Out There, LONG TIME GONE will stream via LiveXLive.com at 8PM CT on Friday, June 12th. Profits from this event will benefit Sister Hearts Re-Entry Program in New Orleans and The Center for Life Without Parole Studies.
SCHEDULE and TUNE IN info for the free radio festival PRISON PRISM : REFRACTING OUTWARD FROM THE PRISON MUSIC PROJECT from June 1st – June 12th, 2020 is at RighteousBabeRadio.com.
BUY TICKETS for the livestream PRISON MUSIC PROJECT SESSIONS: LONG TIME GONE June 12, 2020 8PM CT at prisonmusicproject.com and LiveXLive.com.